In 2006, post-merger, US Airways reported net income was as follows:
US Airways: $343 million net income
America West: Net loss $37 million
In 2005, America West lost $347 million
These undisputed facts shed light on who saved who, or was it mutually beneficial.
Ah, Baghdad Arnie at his slimy best. I'm not going to post the couple of hundred pages of hearing transcripts but that argument was blown out of the water. Basically it showed that AWA management, using financing which was available only because of AWA's willingness to merge with Titanic air, renegotiated leases on aircraft, buildings, etc. The resulting savings showed up on the East balance sheet, while the West incurred costs related to the merger, responsible for the paper loss.
Same Sh@t, different day: Arnie lies, the lemmings believe him.
The only thing that matters: Arnie and the rest of the Ministry of Propaganda were unable to sway the arbitration panel. In their unanimous* decision they wrote:
“Our view is that neither picture is persuasive. The US Airways reliance on post-merger statements by America’s West CEO, clearly made to assuage growing concerns of America West pilots who had seen a post-merger end to hiring, an increasing return of long-furloughed US Airways pilots and a flattening in their own advancement, is misplaced. Equally so is America West’s insistence that US Airways was about to disappear.
Yet, it cannot be disputed that there were differences in the financial condition of both carriers and that US Airways was the weaker.
This necessarily means that career expectations differed and that US Airways pilots had more to gain from the merger than their new colleagues.â€
*Remember that the only dissenting comment was from one neutral who didn't agree with the way the MDA pilots were integrated.
I always wondered how people, who are supposed to know better, could blindly follow nutcases like Chavez, Castro and Ghadaffi. Some of the East posters shed a lot of light on that question.
